Dirty: One Word Can Change The World

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All Rise...

Judge Victor Valdivia's autobiography is also called Dirty, for reasons you really don't want to know.

The Charge

The official ODB biography.

The Case

Hip-hop fans should note that Dirty is not
an unauthorized DVD by any means—it bears the official logo of the Wu-Tang
Clan, and all of the surviving Wu-Tang members are all interviewed, as are
members of Ol' Dirty Bastard's family. Director/producer Stephon Turner also has
licensed several Wu-Tang and ODB songs. However, the slipshod presentation and
sometimes sloppy filmmaking too often make it seem like the cheapest and
shoddiest bargain-basement drivel. That's too bad, because while Dirty
isn't perfect, it does do a reasonably good job of presenting the story of ODB's
life and death in a coherent and understandable fashion. It's actually better
than Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan,
the more hyped official Wu-Tang DVD, even if it doesn't have that DVD's fancy
packaging and intricate graphics. Anyone who has been waiting for a detailed
study of ODB's life and death will find this a surprisingly decent DVD, even if
it isn't as good as it should have been.

Here's what Dirty does right: tell the biography of Ol' Dirty Bastard
(nee Russell Jones) and chronicle his rise as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.
Members of ODB's family are interviewed and give a portrait of him as more than
the drugged-out screw-up he frequently played onstage with Wu-Tang. He was often
far more self-aware and shrewd than his image and was far more responsible for
the group's success than he was given credit for. It's particularly interesting
to see many of Wu-Tang's other members, including Method Man, remark that they
joined Wu-Tang only because ODB was in it. There's also frequent use of Wu-Tang
and ODB songs to demonstrate that he really was a more skilled and talented
artist than he pretended to be. The stories about his life from his parents,
sisters, cousins, and even friends from his neighborhood are especially
affecting. For all his foibles, the members of ODB's family clearly felt a great
deal of affection for him, and Dirty does a superb job of conveying
it.

Where Dirty goes wrong is that Turner tends to go overboard in
glossing over the negative aspects of ODB's life. Judging by this film, you'd
think that ODB's death in 2004 was some sort of mystery, or that his excessive
problems with the law were solely the result of a government conspiracy. No, ODB
was a drug addict and, like all addicts, he did irreparable harm to himself and
brought enormous hardship to those around him. To say that is not to demean his
talent or cast him as an unredeemable villain—it's just the truth. When
Turner gives over way too much screen time for ODB's relatives to proclaim that
they believed his proclamations that the government was out to get him and that
government agents implanted a chip in his body to track his every movement, it's
hard not to want to enter the TV screen to sit them all down and explain how
heavy cocaine use brings on hallucinations and paranoia. Instead of wasting time
with half-baked conspiracy theories, why not try to help viewers understand just
how destructive ODB's drug use was? Why not, in other words, try to extract some
good from ODB's sad, tragic story that others could benefit from? The first half
of Dirty is thoughtful and incisive without being mawkish. Why is the
second half so messy and incomplete?

Special mention must be made to SKD, the company that put out this DVD.
Their release has to stand as an insult to both Turner and ODB's fans. The
entire film is programmed as one selection on the disc, with absolutely no
chapter stops; if you want to watch a particular part, be prepared to use the
rewind and fast-forward buttons a lot. There are also no menus, subtitles, or
extras, and the full-screen transfer and Dolby Digital stereo mix are both on
par with a VHS tape from 1995. This is inexcusable in 2009. How much more
contempt can a company show its customers? Why not just write "SHAMELESS
CASH GRAB" on each DVD case with a Magic Marker?

This lack of attention wouldn't matter much if Dirty was just another
cheap attempt to milk ODB's story for money. Turner, however, deserves better
than this. As flawed as Dirty is, it does attempt to really examine ODB's
life in an intelligent and sensitive way, and, even if Turner does lack the
courage to really ask the hard questions that fans deserve, he does at least get
halfway there. For anyone interested in ODB and the Wu-Tang Clan, Dirty
is worth a look, but be warned that the shoddy presentation and Turner's
directorial failings downgrade what could have been a truly important DVD into
one that's only above average.